Can't bare to have toddler son sleep on his own in his bedroom

Crispy_Ambulance

I must say I'm very surprised at how negative some of the responses on this thread are.

to the OP - it is entirely up to you and what suits your family. The bedroom police will not be round to check up on you. Do what suits you all best and ignore what everyone else thinks.

Your little one will not be sleeping in your room when they are a teenager, so don't worry about it.

conradmum

Crispy_Ambulance wrote:

The bedroom police will not be round to check up on you.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Kimberley

My first a daughter was in her own room from day one, my second a son was in his own room from day one, my third shared with his brother from day one. No way could i have had a 2/3 year old in my bedroom when i was with a partner, i wouldn't have been able to have sex with a child in the room :rolleyes: I mean what if they wake up when your at it and you notice them standing up in their cot looking over to you

They should really have their own room from day one, but i can understand it if you only have a one bedroom appartment.

liney

I think the official advice is that the child should sleep with mom and dad until 6 months old.

My son went into his own room at 3 months old because he would sleep fine until we went to bed, and then he would keep waking. It seems we distrurb him.

If you and your husband have no problem with sharing, then its really no one elses concern.

Kimberley

liney wrote:

If you and your husband have no problem with sharing, then its really no one elses concern.

It is when you put it on this site, why ask for advice if it's no one elses business

wickedwitch_2

Our son moved into his own room when he was about 6 months old with no problems. When he moved from his cot to a bed we used to regularly wake up to find him in bed with us but couldn't remember him getting in. One night however, I was awake and heard him coming in. I pretended to be asleep and he just whispered in my ear 'Move up'. I must have been doing it in my sleep!

He's 19 now and I still miss the days when he could cuddle up in bed with us. Mind you, not so long ago when OH was working away he got up to use the loo and afterwards sleep walked into our room and got in bed with me. When I asked him what he was doing he replied, with his eyes closed, 'Going to sleep' as if I'd asked a silly question. Kids eh? He couldn't remember doing it next day.

CFC

conradmum wrote:

There's a fairly comprehensive article on cosleeping which states:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Long-term Benefits[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Higher self-esteem. Boys who coslept with their parents between birth and five years of age had significantly higher self-esteem and experienced less guilt and anxiety. For women, co-sleeping during childhood was associated with less discomfort about physical contact and affection as adults (Lewis & Janda, 1988). Co-sleeping appears to promote confidence, self-esteem, and intimacy, possibly by reflecting an attitude of parental acceptance (Crawford, 1994).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]More positive behavior.In a study of parents on military bases, co-sleeping children received higher evaluations from their teachers than did solitary sleeping children (Forbes et al., 1992). A recent study in England showed that among the children who "never" slept in their parents bed, there was a trend to be harder to control, less happy, exhibit a greater number of tantrums, and these children were actually more fearful than children who always slept in their parents’ bed, all night (Heron, 1994).[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Increased life satisfaction. A large, cross-cultural study conducted on five different ethnic groups in large U.S. cities found that, across all groups, co-sleepers exhibited a general feeling of satisfaction with life (Mosenkis, 1998).[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.attachmentparenting.org/artbenefitscosleep.shtml[/FONT][/quote

If you go read the sources you'll see it was not statistically significant.

Are you an attachment parent. Are you one of the number of attachment parents still breastfeeding your child at the age of ten, or intending to do so? And no, I think attachment parenting is far from healthy and normal.


To respond to your comments -

<<It seems to me that the real reason you want to keep your child in your room is your own projection of loneliness - you feel that your son would be 'lonely' in his room.

Don't you think that's just a tad presumptious of you? You know next to nothing about this family.>>

Nope, I don't think it's presumptious. Read what the OP wrote:

<<
Son now 3 and baby on the way. I cannot bare to think of son having to move into his bedroom to sleep there on his own. I know all about those SuperNanny and TinyTearAway programs all working hard with parents to get their child to sleep on their own in their bedroom.. I just don't want him to.

I personally don't like sleeping on my own and I love sleeping in a room with Dh & son. When I was single I did not like sleeping on my own and teddy would then serve the job of pretending to be a person.>>

That is called 'projection' in counselling terms, the external projection onto others of own internal wishes.

He's 3 - that's not a baby - and if you keep him in your room till he's 5, then that is rather strange.
No, you think it's strange. For many families - families in the UK - it isn't remotely strange.

Yes it is strange. Full stop. Same as breastfeeding your child until they are ten, as parental attachment proponents are happy to do, is strange, no matter what you call it.

Not only that, but you may not be able to get him out then - he will have become used to it. So at the age of 9, perhaps, the eldest will still be sleeping with you. And your new baby too, who will be 7 by then.Then all the teasing will start and his self confidence may go down the pan.

Who's to say he won't choose to sleep in his own room of his own accord? Many children do you know. And who'll be teasing him exactly? Children of narrow minded parents perhaps?

Note the 'may not be able to get him out'. Never said he 'would not'. Who'll be teasing him? Children. Doesn't matter whether their parents are narrow minded or not, it won't be the parents teasing him, it'll be the kids. Join the real world. Kids tease kids who are different for any reason.

The best medical advice on children in bedrooms if for babies up to 6 months to sleep in a cot in the parental bedroom. There's certainly no medical evidence saying that after that, there is any benefit medically at all.

And there's no evidence to say there's any detriment either. What's your point here?

Another poster suggested it may be healthier. It's not unhealthy to sleep apart from your child. It's called 'reassurance' that nothing dreadful will happen to the child if he sleeps alone.

It may be normal in other cultures to keep children in a parental bedroom until an indeterminate age. Who knows, maybe it's the form of birth control, in this country it certainly had it's roots in poverty - the whole family living and sleeping together, and not always apart from the animals, either - snuggling up to cows, anyone?

This is deeply offensive. Please keep your prejudices to yourself. There are plenty of nasty things that could be said about parents who think it's okay to put a tiny baby in a room alone to sleep when all it's known is the warmth and security of its mother's womb. Would you call Sweden a poor country that needs the benefit of birth control? Because it's normal to share rooms with your children there too.

What a load of emotive rubbish here. I've posted nothing offensive at all. People used to sleep with their animals in the middle ages. Read some history. It helps keep the humans warm. And how strange, my husband is Swedish and so are all my inlaws (naturally) and they've never ever heard it's normal to sleep with your kids in the parent's bedroom past babyhood, and don't know anyone who does it. In fact, what IS normal in Sweden is for children to sleep upstairs and the adults to have a ground floor bedroom. So heaven knows where you got that supposed 'fact' from. So your fact is just a 'prejudice' about Sweden - please keep your prejudices to yourslf. How dare you accuse all Swedish people of strange practices!

However, whether it is normal in Guatemala (maybe birth control for a Catholic country) or whether it is normal in Japan (a totally different society, where people grow up with a different outlook) it's not normal here. And here is where we live.

Err, yes it is normal here. People just don't tend to talk about it. Wonder why?:rolleyes:

No it isn't normal here, any more than breastfeeding your children when they are school age is normal, however much you wish it was. I agree, if you are an attachment parent, you probably do know a few others who also do not-normal things, but it still doesn't make it normal. Or healthy.

Yes, of course it's sad when they go into their own rooms - and it's still sad for a mother sometimes even when they want to. Children growing up is often sad for mums. But you've still got to let them go, little by little, for their own good.

Yes, the good old British way. It's good to deprive your children of comfort and togetherness. That's what's given us the wonderfully functioning society we have today.

Sorry, I disagree with you yet again. Quelle suprise. The fact that society is falling apart is because of a lot of reasons, mostly political and the consequences thereof, none of which are that children sleep in their own room. Smell the coffee.

Even if you say, ah, well I'll say that at 5 he HAS to go and sleep with his sister or brother - well he's not going to like sleeping with the baby in a shared room when he thinks he's a Big Boy now he's 5...

Huh? Plenty of children share rooms into their teens!

Some have to, when parents can't afford to give each one a room of their own. But older children rarely like sharing a room with a younger child, if there is the option not to do so.

We'll have to agree to disagree. However I do personally feel you're pushing a very specialised viewpoint (attachment parenting) and pretending it's 'normal and average' and 'everyone does it'. Except when it suits you to argue that what IS actually normal and average is the cause of a breakdown in society, in which case you change your argument to 'if everyone did something not normal and average, our society would be better'.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

PS - to other posters, I think kids wandering into your room or bed in the middle of the night when they feel like it is normal and healthy, if they've started the night in their own bedroom. Providing you still manage to get your kip!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5197440.stm

gravitytolls

We have 7 children, and no.8 is 2 weeks away.
The first 3 we stringently put in their own beds, by our bed, then in their own room.
No.4 slept in the cot by the bed, but when she had chicken pox, she was so poorly at 11 mths, that she ended up in with us, just so we could get some sleep.

This pretty much set the pattern. She didn't want to leave, and we, freankly weren't bothered either way. We just got a bigger bed.

No. 5 came along, and no.4 moved over a for a bit, then went into her own room, with no problems, as I spent plenty of tiem settling her into a new routine.

No.6 came along, and his predecessor moved out at about 3.5, he slept with us until about the same age, and no.7 is still with us, as she's only 2.

TBH, I can't honestly say that any child is more balanced than another. I would say that we don't make a fuss about getting them inot their own beds until they seem to be ready, because it is very stressful for us all. And, I would have to admit that I think the sound of gntle snores from a contentedly sleeping toddler is just the most wonderful thing to fall asleep too. Think how safe they must feel, snuggled up with their folks.

So, what am I aying? Do what you want. It's no one else's' business. Of course there needs to be a cut off point, and I'm sure you'll naturally reach it without outside intervention or criticism. What coudl be more natural than young children and their parents being together?

conradmum

Oh dear Gravitytolls, you are very strange! You must be one of those weird attachment parents who breastfeed their children to the age of ten!
Amazing how people will ascribe other completely unmentioned habits to you when they find you have one that they happen to disagree with.
CFC, I don't know what your idea of an attachment parent is but I doubt I fit it. Don't let that stop you putting me in a little box with your 'counselling skills'. No decent counsellor would ever make a judgement about someone's psychological state based on a few comments they've written on a forum. It would be extremely irresponsible to do so and I sincerely hope you aren't a counsellor.
The research on Swedish sleeping practices can be read here:
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1471-6712.2005.00358.x?journalCode=scs

And here:
Americans should not be quick to judge the "co-sleeping" practices of Swedish families, said Barbara Welles-Nystrom. An American who earned her Ed.D. under LeVine at the Graduate School of Education and now teaches at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Welles-Nystrom said that children are welcome in their parents' bed until the age of 7 or 8.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/1998/10.29/SymposiumFocuse.html

And here:
The results showed that Swedish children often co-sleep with both
of their parents until school age, when more boys than girls stop the practice. This is
an important finding, because much of the literature suggests that this practice exists
primarily for infants in non-Western cultures who co-sleep with their mothers.

[SIZE=-1]ki.se/content/1/c4/04/01/reproductive.pdf

So I can only suggest your husband's family and their friends must be strange.

Whether the results of the studies that found the benefits of cosleeping were statistically significant or not (and I seriously doubt you actually did go and read the sources), is immaterial. There is no detrimental effect from cosleeping.

I find it very sad that you have a view of society that any child who cosleeps with their parents will inevitably [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]be [/SIZE][SIZE=-1]teased at school, and that parents should therefore always conform to the accepted view in order to avoid this.I prefer to encourage my children to do what feels right for them and ignore other people if they don't like it.
[/SIZE]

Carmina_Piranha_3

it seems that gravity's experience is similar to mine although i only have 2 children - some will want to stay with parents until 3-ish, some are fine in their own room as babies.

was the OP asking for advice anyway? i thought she was asking if anyone else agreed with her.